Thanks to Marilyn Miller, Rick Gayle, Neil A. Miller and all the wonderful volunteers for providing photos for this post.
Our 6th annual AZPA Members’ Exhibition was a well-attended event. Members, guests and the arts community were all part of the opening reception. A great food spread, and plentiful wine kept the crowd in a festive spirit. (It is, after all called the Mood Room.) All the exhibition committee members and volunteers did an impressive job arranging both the show and the reception.
I was especially impressed with the number of non-members who came out for the event, even though it was not on one of the usual First or Third Friday art events. Much of the credit goes to our communication teams that keeps AZPA highlighted in the arts community.
The show is stunning, significant for its size as well as its quality. This year 55 artists submitted 95 pieces, making it the largest show to date. If the upward trend continues, it may require a change of venue to accommodate the amount of work submitted for future shows.
The work and planning this year yielded an exceptional exhibit. Special thanks to Richard Laugharn for laying out the images before the installation crew descended with hammers, tape measures and levels. It is no mean feat to make sense of this variety of media, subject matter, styles, and sizes. The result is a show that uses every available wall area but still gives each piece space for its own uniqueness.
This year’s juror was Michelle Nichols-Dock, Senior Visual Curator for the Tempe Center for the Arts. Congratulations go to Chris Palmer (left) who won the Jurors Recognition award, and Amy Dangerfield (middle) who was the recipient of the juror’s Special Recognition Award. This year’s Jurors Award of Distinction was given to John Wagner (right).
Again, a big thanks to all the members who volunteer their time to put such a nice event together for us.
Robert Galloway
Contributing Writer
Originally from Ohio, he received a Bachelor of Fine Art in Art from Ohio State University and then moved to the desert in 1979 to pursue a Master of Fine Art in Photography at Arizona State University. Bob is an emeritus professor from Mesa Community College where he taught photography for 39 years.
In addition to teaching, he was an arts administrator for the Maricopa College District for five years, creating the first district wide literature journals, music competitions and art exhibits.
Bob is very encouraged about the embrace of local arts at a grassroots level and hopes to assist in that growth and development. His photographic experience and interests have been wide ranging. Currently he has been looking at how we are using the desert environment as a performance space.
“It’s really difficult to have a bad day when you wake up in the morning and get to talk about art with people.”
Contact Bob